Of Sorrows and Starlight
by HedwigsTalons
Summary: Promises are important, especially those made to your mother.


Jeff sat alone in the dimly lit lounge, a glass in hand, contemplating the silence. As the nearby clock chimed midnight he raised his glass and whispered "Happy birthday, Lucille".

He allowed himself a few moments of quiet introspection. How many birthdays had he missed? How many picnics by the creek with the birthday tea spread out on a blanket? Often busy working he had missed so many celebrations only to return home late for a saved slice of her favourite lemon birthday cake. Sometimes he hadn't even managed that, either being away with the Air Force, or on one memorable occasion off-planet. She had always been so understanding. Always been so forgiving. There would be other birthdays.

Except now there weren't any more birthdays. In the morning he and the boys would be facing the first one without her there. There would be lemon cake but no singing and no candles.

Jeff returned his glass to the kitchen and crept quietly up the stairs. He paused at each bedroom door to check on his sleeping children, listening to deep rhythmic breathing.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Four? One room was empty. The bedroom curtains were drawn back to let in the night. Unlike many parents on discovering that one of their children was missing Jeff didn't panic, merely sighed and returned downstairs.

He headed to the back door and stepped out onto the veranda. The early summer night was still warm and the heady scent of lilacs filled the air. The waning moon hung like curl of lemon rind near the horizon. The cloudless sky glittered with countless pinpricks of light. He traced the familiar forms of Sagittarius and Libra and greeted them like old friends.

Jeff stepped off the veranda and crossed the home paddock behind the house. He didn't need a torch to guide him on this familiar and well trodden path. His destination was a small, shed-like structure at on the far side of the paddock; his own private observatory.

He he drew nearer he could see that the sliding roof panel had been moved back giving the powerful telescope inside a clear view of the night sky.

Jeff let himself into the small hut and smiled; his intuition proven right. A small figure with blonde hair was asleep in the chair.

Reluctant to wake the boy yet, Jeff took a look at what he had been working on. Star charts littered the desk. The dimly glowing screen of a tablet showed that his errant son had somehow managed to access the Space Agency databases. He made a mental note to contact his former colleagues about their security levels which must be lacking if even a child could hack into their supposedly secure system. The telescope itself was trained on an unremarkable patch of sky. While the telescope might the be of considerably better quality that you would expect to find in a domestic set-up, through its lenses the field of view seemed almost devoid of stars. He wondered what had drawn his son's attention to that particular part of space.

Jeff closed up the observatory roof to protect the precious telescope from the elements then bent down to pick up his son who stirred from the unexpected moment.

"Come on son. Time to get you back to bed. Do you think you can hang on to my back?"

A small nod.

Carrying his son in a piggyback across the paddock they has barely gone half way when he felt the small figure start to shake. A first he thought that perhaps the night felt cold through the thin pyjamas. Then, as a sniff was quickly followed by a sob the realisation hit that his son was crying. There had been a lot of tears over the last few months but Jeff still felt at a loss with how to deal with them. Lucille had been so much better at this sort of thing. He carried on walking across the paddock towards the house.

"I couldn't do it, Dad."

"Couldn't do what?"

"I promised I'd discover a new star, just for her. I promised it would be her birthday present. I've looked so hard. I've let her down."

So this explained the preoccupation with the dark of space. The methodical checking and cross checking of every dot of light with the registers of that which was already known. Unfortunately Jeff knew that, no matter how good his telescope was for a privately owned instrument, it was never going to compete against the resources of the Space Agency.

"You haven't let her down. She knows you have tried your hardest. Now it's time to get some sleep."

They had reached the house by this point. Jeff climbed quietly up the stairs for a second time, deposited his son into bed, and returned to his own room safe in the knowledge that there were now five heads on pillows across the landing.

He reflected on the promise his son had made. It was a seemingly impossible task. Man had been watching the sky of centuries and been sending objects into space for nearly one hundred years. The chances of one small boy with a telescope in Kansas finding anything new was remote. He wondered if his own silent promise to his wife and to the world would be any more successful.

xoxoxox

High above the earth, in a satellite in geostationary orbit, a young man with blonde hair stares through a telescope. Normally the lenses are trained on some interesting astronomical body but at this time of year his gaze is increasing drawn to the darker areas of the universe.

He absent-mindedly straightens the sash of his uniform; it's lilac colour a permanent reminder of his mother's favourite flowers.

Gazing into the darkness his eye is drawn to a fresh glimmer of light, previously unseen in the vista of space. Somewhere out there, unknown numbers of light years away, a star is born.

He carefully plots the co-ordinates and enters them into the Space Agency database, registering the discovery forever more. He knows he is likely to get a few querying emails from his former colleagues when they realise he can still get into the system but a quick excuse about his access rights not expiring should pacify them enough to deflect suspicion.

He settles back by the telescope the gaze at that tiny dot of light; so insignificant in many ways but to him it is the most important star in the universe. The sign of a promise fulfilled after so many years.

"Happy birthday, Mum" he whispers.


End file.
